Celia (left) Nino (center) and Paris (right) got things set up. Thank you Paris for doing a great job coordinating the event and for many of the pictures I am posting!
We got the fruit, water, and everything else on to the tables for the runners
Titus and the girls were obviously more than ready to run
The runners were prepared (OK I didn’t really run)
Everyone enjoyed a little zumba warmup
Then the 5k runners lined up for the start…
From the PIU Facebook Page
From the “President’s Message” in the most recent PIU Newsletter
Finally, we have many interested new applicants to come to PIU in the Fall of 2014. Last week we tested 18 and met with another 15 high school seniors in Chuuk that all indicated that PIU was at the center of their future education plans. There is also a great deal of interest from the other islands. The main barrier to these students is their financial resources. Over 90% of PIU’s Micronesian students receive a full Pell grant, but this still leaves them with a gap of about
$1200-1500 per semester between costs and what they can afford. There are two ways you can help us bridge the gap. One is to contribute to the PIU Rising Tide Fund. This fund allows us to pay teachers and keep the costs reachable for our students. This year our Rising Tide Fund is nearly $22,000 short of our budgeted goal. A second way to help is to support to the PIU scholarship fund. Each dollar contributed to the scholarship fund helps a needy student pay for their tuition, room, books, or food.
We appreciate your prayers for and partnership with PIU. Your partnership helps us break down
the barriers to Christian higher education in the Pacific Islands.
From the PIU Facebook Page
Congratulations Courage!
Family Pictures
I have been reading through Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes these past couple weeks. As I read the books together I am even more convinced that both books are about how to live wisely in this fallen world. Both have multiple connections with Genesis 2-3. As Duane A. Garrett says in the New American Commentary, Song of Songs, pg. 380…
The message is that the mutual pleasures of love are good and possible even in this fallen world. The Song is a testimony to the grace of God and a rejection of both asceticism and debauchery.
I would see the message of the Song as a little darker than Garret’s take on it, but we agree that it presents both the good and bad side of love and the marriage relationship. The Song defines love as commitment to meeting the needs of the other person. In marriage this is an exclusive commitment. It also recognizes that love make us vulnerable to being hurt and misused. Nevertheless we must love anyway if we want to be fully human. Love allows us to be taken advantage of – love anyway. We can’t love fully because the darkness is inside us as well – we still must commit to love. Sometimes love forces us to give up short term benefits to others – love them anyway. Love, as it proceeds from God, is the only way to live wisely in relationships in this evil world, until Jesus returns and we live in a perfect Kingdom.
Here are a few more highlight quotes from my commentary readings last week…
The charge is that the girls should not allow themselves to be aroused sexually until the proper time and person arrives. The natural joy of sexual awakening is ruined by premature experimentation. Thus it is that she adjures them by the doe and gazelle: for a woman to awaken love before it pleases is to deprive herself of the full experience of romance and sexuality symbolized by these graceful animals. Song 2.7, 392–393.
The first part of the Song, a pure celebration of their love, ends with a call for him to enjoy the pleasures she gives. Song of Songs 2.17, 395–396.
The Song avoids the extremes of libertinism and asceticism on the issue of sexuality. Sexuality within the commitment of marriage is celebrated as a gift from God (and picture of God), while sex without the exclusive lifetime commitment is rightly recognized as exploitation.
The wandering in the street is most clearly paralleled in Proverbs, in which both Lady Wisdom and the prostitute roam the streets in search of young men. Both figures desire to entice the young man. The desire to entice is not of itself good or evil since Wisdom herself follows this practice. Therefore, when the girl rises to search for her young man, it represents her desire to entice him as an act of love. Song of Songs 3.1-5, 398.
Both men and women must resist the temptation to use their sexuality in an exploitative way. Desire is a good thing, but when misused, hurts both the perpetrator and victim. Fulfilled in a loving, committed relationship, it reflects the image of God.
The picture of a tower of David, Israel’s great warrior king, adorned with the shields and weapons of mighty men, cannot but convey a sense of unassailable strength. No man could “conquer” her, and her suitor is awed by the dignity she carries. Her love is a gift; it could never become plunder. Song of Songs 4.4, 405.
The picture of a tower of David, Israel’s great warrior king, adorned with the shields and weapons of mighty men, cannot but convey a sense of unassailable strength. No man could “conquer” her, and her suitor is awed by the dignity she carries. Her love is a gift; it could never become plunder. Song of Songs 4.4, 405.
The price Solomon pays for this is detachment from the actual life of working the vineyard. As such he cannot fully appreciate the pleasures the vineyard can give. For him the whole arrangement is financial and in fact artificial...For Solomon wealth and women alike were possessions; for her the relationship she has established is personal, intimate, and nurturing. She is the keeper of the vineyard. Song of Songs 8.11-12, 430.
Love cannot be bought, sold, manipulated or conquered. It can only be given and received.
Maintaining the metaphor of the garden, she invites him to come and enjoy her love. This is the consummation of their marriage...The man responds. The poetry is discreet and restrained; it conveys the joy of sexual love without vulgarity; at the same time, the meaning is quite clear. The catalog of luxuries here imply that he has partaken of her pleasures to the full. Song of Songs 4.16-5.1, 407.
In surrendering her womanhood to him, she has opened herself to great emotional hurt. She feels isolated and, perhaps, depressed. But the solution to her problem is not to be found in something either they or he can do for her; it is to be found in herself. She must recognize that she gave herself to him for a reason, that she is in fact deeply in love with him. He is, in her eyes, better than all other men. Song of Songs 5.9, 413.
The place of this text as wisdom is apparent. It prepares the reader for the joy as well as trauma of love. It readies the woman for marriage and gives the man an added cause to appreciate and admire his bride. It is also a celebration of the woman’s love, both as a gift she gives the man and as a signification of her own value and character. It is the Song of love victorious over pain. Love is as strong as death and passion as unyielding as the grave. Song of Songs, 432.
Love has the capacity to bring both amazing joy and excruciating pain. The Song both celebrates love and warns of the vulnerability it causes.
Love is as strong as death in the sense that its power cannot be resisted. It never releases those whom it has once seized. Even so, the introduction of death and the grave to this context surprises the reader...This attachment is possessive and exclusive, as in the “passion” of the Lord for Israel. Just as the grave swallows down men and women, so the passion of love, when it has taken a prisoner, never lets him or her go. Song of Songs 8.6, 426.
If we only knew of wisdom literature we would probably conclude that it is best to leave love alone – it is too painful. But Jesus (marriage is a type of God’s love, not an allegory here) shows that when one makes oneself vulnerable by loving, that evil is defeated and God’s kingdom is established.
Serenity still managed to get a lot of attention
Note the celebratory wedding picture T-shirt in the middle. Josh and Paige (left) Mike and Luke (right)
Serenity, me and Jonah
More pictures with the bride and groom
Nonie-Courage, Joyce-Jayne, Jayne-Nate
Jesse-Jonie, Jonah-Luke
Another Jesse/Jonie T, Jonie’s mom, Serenity
Rob and Daisy, Sarah with the kids
The girls enjoy their snacks
It was a great day with many good friends
